Things were looking so promising for the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s Phase Five until it actually began, with Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania creating a lurching sense of dread that the divisive Phase Four may not have been a minor misstep.
Peyton Reed’s threequel keeps hitting those unwanted benchmarks, and when you couple that with the other issues to have plagued the franchise recently, then it’s easy to see why fans have been getting so concerned. It isn’t all doom and gloom quite yet, though, but that doesn’t mean we’re living in a multiverse of sunshine and roses.
Quantumania continues scraping the bottom of the MCU barrel
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is barely ahead of Eternals on Rotten Tomatoes when it comes to determining the MCU’s worst-reviewed installment ever, but it’s joined the underwhelming intergalactic epic at the bottom of the barrel in another key indicator of audience response.
Scott Lang’s third standalone adventure and Chloe Zhao’s cosmic caper are now the only two of the long-running superhero saga’s 31 features to have scored a B rating on CinemaScore, and with two of the three B+ titles being Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder, the downward trajectory talk gains more weight by the release.
Variety is the spice of life, but let’s hope Phase Five matches it with consistency
In a turn-up for the books, the Multiverse Saga is surprisingly light on direct sequels, with Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars the only titles from the same series releasing from the beginning of Phase Four through to the end of Phase Six.
Of course, plenty of established favorites and a certain Merc with a Mouth have new adventures on the way, but there are also several introductions and a smattering of reboots to be found, but we can only hope that the rest of the slate manages to match quantity with quality, even if Quantumania has tempered those expectations.
Even the stars of Ant-Man want to see the fourth installment head back to basics
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has suffered from making such a radical departure from its predecessor, with the green screen cavalcade and mountainous volume of Multiverse Saga table-setting rendering it unrecognizable from the breezy heist capers of days gone by.
In a potentially damning indicator, even the stars themselves have admitted that any potential Ant-Man 4 should return to its roots, which is something a great deal of fans and general audience alike would much rather see based on the reception to the threequel.
That’s it for today’s roundup of all things Marvel, but be sure to check back tomorrow as we no doubt sift through even more wreckage left behind by Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.